EVERYONE’S INVITED TO CELEBRATE TOAST’S 25th ANNIVERSARY

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, premium wine festival Toast Martinborough is inviting everyone to join in with special wine-themed activities on the day before Toast.“No Toast ticket needed,” says General Manager Anna Nielson.
“We want Saturday 19 November to be about sharing Toast’s silver anniversary with the whole region, and to welcome and entertain many of the thousands of Toast guests who come in for the weekend.”

This is the first time such a wide range of activities will be offered to make the weekend special, building on the popular annual Barrel Race which has provided fun, thrills and spills for more than a decade.
Many of the Toast wineries are offering special activities on Saturday, from a stylish Garden Party High Tea at Tirohana Estate (with Butler and Maid service), to light-hearted handy hints at Luna Estate about tasting wine using all your senses.
Plus, some very special and rare wine tasting treats are on offer: pre-release tastings of new wines, barrel tastings of wines not even bottled yet, vertical tastings over several years and some hidden treasures of older wines are promised. Most cellar doors will be open, including prestigious Dry River Wines for the first time ever.
Vynfields is presenting Asian treats, with delicious yakitori skewers over a wood-burning Hibachi, and Chinese artistry with calligraphy, painting and satins on display.
Most of these activities will include food. Pre-booking is needed for some activities and for others just come along. For details see Eventfinda.co.nz and search using the key word ‘Toast Martinborough’.
The Barrel Race around Martinborough’s beautiful Square has become a pre-Toast tradition, as winery staff show a deft turn of hand manoeuvring those big wine barrels around, dodging water balloons and spurred on by the roar of the crowd.
Corporate competitiveness is alive and well, as local businesses compete in the Trolley Race, defying gravity in their home-built trolleys.
Visitors and wine tasters staying locally are also catered for with a special Toast shuttle bus around Martinborough, which will drop visitors at the gate of participating wineries.
The TOAST shuttle bus will meet both regular Saturday Tranzit services from Masterton, via Carterton, Greytown and Featherston Station to Martinborough (meeting the Wellington train), and back again at the end of the day. See www.tranzit.co.nz for details.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun, and we look forward to seeing a great crowd enjoying themselves,” concluded Anna Nielson.
Photo caption: Visitors enjoying a walk through Margarain Vineyard .